Chapter142: The Outsider

Chapter One Hundred Forty-Two
The Outsider

This…

Within that strange silence, the first thought that flashed through the recovered Derrick Berg’s mind was to save someone.

However, the two guards flanking him showed no reaction at all, as if everything that had just happened had been only his auditory hallucination.

“Someone in there was calling for help,” young Derrick reminded the two Dawn Paladins.

The tall knight walking to his left, wearing a full suit of silver armor, answered calmly and without a ripple, “Do not fall for it.

“That is only a normal display from some Beyonders near losing control.”

Is that so? Perhaps he simply does not want to give up and become a monster by losing control, so he screamed and begged for help…

Derrick thought with slight sorrow.

As his mood shifted, the illusory droning beside his ears grew noticeably louder.

They continued forward in silence for a few more steps. The Dawn Paladin from before pointed to a door on the left.

“You will live here for this period. We will deliver food and medicine on schedule.”

As he spoke, he took out a small iron-black bottle.

This kind of bottle was woven from the straw-like remnants of black-faced grass, the staple food of the City of Silver. When it encountered liquid, it produced a thin membrane, allowing it to be sealed against water.

Derrick accepted the medicine, gulped it down, and felt a wave of coolness slide down his esophagus into his stomach.

His whole body quickly became tranquil. The swaying scene before his eyes returned to stability, and the hallucinations by his ears gradually weakened.

Clang!

Amid the sound of the iron door closing and locking behind him, Derrick entered the room that belonged to him.

The first thing he saw was a candle swaying with dim yellow light. After that, he made out the low bed, the chair, and the square table.

Other than those, there was nothing else. But all around him, the walls—including the door—had been carved with complicated and mysterious symbols and marks. They seemed to form a complete seal.

Derrick’s emotions were likewise suppressed by the medicine. Without the slightest curiosity, he sat down, then lay upon the bed.

After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly heard violent pounding on a door.

Bang, bang, bang!

But the sound did not come from outside his own room. It came from next door.

Derrick rolled over and sat up, listening carefully. Amid the collisions, he heard thin, sharp, sorrowful sobbing.

The hairs on his body rose sharply. He shot to his feet and assumed an extremely defensive stance.

At that moment, the bang, bang, bang spread to the metal wall separating the two rooms, hammering one slowly flattening bulge after another into it.

Derrick was about to pray for holy light when his eyes suddenly brightened. The space he occupied seemed to have been moved entirely outside, just as lightning streaked past.

The wall-pounding sounds from next door vanished at once. The bottom of the round tower returned to silence.

It was not absolute silence, but a silence where the faintest footstep could travel very far and echo for a long time.

As Derrick was guessing what had happened to the Beyonder next door, the metal wall on his other side was knocked upon.

Knock, knock, knock!

It was as if someone over there had bent a finger and lightly rapped.

“Who is it?” Derrick raised his voice, asking with some fear.

The knocking immediately paused. Several seconds later, a deep but rather old voice came vaguely through the wall.

“So it’s a little fellow who isn’t very old.”

“Who are you?” Seeing that the other party could communicate rationally, Derrick moved closer to the wall and pressed his ear against the cold metal.

The old voice chuckled.

“The one beside you nearly lost control several times before. Today, in the end, he could not be saved.”

He lost control completely?

Through the metal wall, Derrick asked, “Then has he now become a monster?”

“No, not a monster. A corpse. He has already been dealt with by the item sealed here,” the old voice sighed. “I have been here forty-two years. Mm, the guards told me that. I have seen too many things like this.”

Derrick was rather astonished and asked back, “You have stayed here for forty-two years?”

Normally speaking, loss of control could be divided into three stages. First came the warning signs, such as auditory and visual hallucinations. Second, the body and mind began to slip somewhat beyond control, and from time to time would display terrifying or bizarre states. Third came complete collapse, degenerating into a horrible monster.

Among them, the transition from the second stage to the third was very fast. Perhaps right as a discovery was made, one would see an apparently normal Beyonder turn into a monster from the depths of darkness.

In other words, once a Beyonder at the second stage was sent to the bottom of the round tower, they either gradually stabilized and left this place within a year or half a year after treatment through medicine, rituals, and other methods, or they would soon step into loss of control and be cleansed. It was impossible for someone to be locked here for forty-two years.

As for a Beyonder in the first stage, perhaps they only needed a few days, or a dozen days, to eliminate the warning signs and recover enough to leave.

The old voice immediately chuckled.

“Yes. I never expected I would stay here forty-two years either.

“I have no signs of losing control at all. Yet they believe I am extremely dangerous, and that I might turn into a monster at any time.”

Derrick frowned slightly and asked curiously, “What exactly happened forty-two years ago?”

At that time, even his parents had not yet been born.

The old voice was silent for a moment before saying, “I was once the captain of an exploration team.

“We discovered a destroyed city half a month away from the City of Silver. Heh, that is calculated according to our speed.

“That city was similar to our City of Silver. It clearly bore traces of having once been ruled by giants, and it believed in the Lord who created everything, the omniscient and omnipotent God.

“Unfortunately, it was destroyed. Destroyed an unknown number of years ago.”

Derrick was not unfamiliar with similar matters. He immediately guessed, “You encountered something strange there, and that is why you were judged to be in danger of losing control at any moment?”

“More or less.” The old voice gave a heh. “After we explored the central area, we discovered that the city had tried to change its faith. They had shaped statues of gods they imagined could save them. But it was useless. Even those statues had been destroyed, scattered all over the ground.”

At that point, his tone suddenly turned heavy.

“However—however, we encountered someone there.

“For more than two thousand years, he was the first living person we of the City of Silver had encountered who did not belong to our city-state!

“Outside the City of Silver, deep in that endless darkness, there truly were still people alive!”

Derrick instinctively asked, “You brought him back to the City of Silver?”

After two seconds, the old voice said, “Do you not feel shaken?”

“We of the City of Silver have struggled to explore the surroundings precisely to search for humans like ourselves. Forty-two years ago, we finally found one!”

This is indeed extremely shocking news, but… but I often see Miss Justice and Mr. Hanged Man. I often hear about the Loen Kingdom and the seven orthodox gods. That there are still people, city-states, and nations beyond the City of Silver is already a very obvious fact…

Derrick scratched his head and, inexperienced, pretended to sound shocked.

“I—I did not notice that point just now.

“It truly is unbelievable. Aside from residents of the City of Silver, there are actually other people who exist!”

“…”

The old voice fell silent for quite a while before saying, “Has education in the City of Silver become this poor?”

Without waiting for Derrick to speak, he sighed and continued on his own.

“Very cautiously, we invited that person to visit the City of Silver. After thinking it over, he agreed.

“We monitored and escorted him along the way back. But just when we were close to the City of Silver, he suddenly disappeared…

“We searched everywhere nearby and failed to find him. After we returned to the City of Silver, my team members went mad one after another. They lost control. Every one of them! All of them!

“The six-member council suspected that all of us had been contaminated by something. They suspected that person had never been human at all, but an evil spirit, a monster. So they locked me here. Every once in a while, they come to confirm my condition, but they never tell me where the problem lies, and they never let me out.”

Derrick let out a heavy breath.

“Do you still remember what that person looked like?”

“…He looked very ordinary, without any characteristics. His clothing was similar to ours as well. Other than remembering that he was male, I cannot recall his appearance at all… However, the elders should be able to use Beyonder methods to directly see him from my vague, forgotten memories.” The old voice recalled for dozens of seconds and spoke with slight pain.

Derrick casually asked one more question.

“Then did he say what he was called? Did he tell you where he came from?”

The old voice gave an “mm.”

“He told us his name was…”

He paused, then said, “Amon.”

…

Sunday morning, the Factory Borough.

Over the previous two days, Klein and Mike, guided by Old Kohler, had “visited” many places in the East Borough.

Because of it, Mike saw five or six people squeezed into a single room—and that was not even the worst situation.

In the poorest parts of the East Borough, a normal bedroom could even sleep ten people. The precise division of ownership, such as floor space, day-use rights, and night-use rights, left the reporter utterly astonished.

Furthermore, poverty did not differentiate between men and women. In those places, people of different sexes were unavoidably crowded together. Certain matters serious enough to go to court were everywhere. Whether male or female, all of them faced the threat of violence at every moment.

“…Filth, crowding, stench—these are the most direct impressions… I suspect every one of them has severe parasites in their bodies… In the most dilapidated neighborhoods, because the houses were built long ago and have no dedicated connection to the sewers, excrement, urine, vomit, and such are everywhere. An entire building has only one public washroom, or an entire street has only one public toilet…

“They work every day until they are exhausted beyond limit, yet can only barely fill their stomachs, with no savings at all. If they become unemployed for just a few days, they will plunge into an abyss from which they cannot save themselves… I believe that as long as they are given the slightest hope, they may not even fear death…”

That was how Mike wrote in his investigative manuscript.

In addition, the vagrants driven out in the middle of the night, wandering the streets like living corpses; the women standing numb along roadsides or inside bars; and the drinkers who indulged in alcohol, were never stingy with violence, and never wished to consider the future, all left an extremely deep impression upon the reporter.

He grew more and more silent.